About Ray

It has been said that Charles Dickens would have been hard-pressed to write the story of my childhood and early years. By comparison, Oliver Twist definitely drew the lucky straw!

Although I have no personal recollection of those earliest years, records show that, having been rejected by my parents, I was placed in three different London workhouses. At the age of four, I was transferred to a large orphanage in Sidcup, Kent, which housed 586 children.

Discipline was regimental, and we became completely institutionalised. Our physical needs were well catered for, but our emotional and nurturing needs could not possibly be met in such an environment. Later in life, I realised that I had developed a deep fear of rejection and had become a great attention seeker. However, I was also extremely competitive. We had to be — it was necessary for our survival. I was reasonably good at sport and represented every school I attended at football, cricket and athletics.

I left school three weeks after my fifteenth birthday with no qualifications. The secondary modern school I attended did not offer external examinations. I started my first job on 2 January 1952. My gross wage for a 48-hour week was one pound, nine shillings and three pence — £1.46 in decimal currency.

My five-year apprenticeship indentures in mechanical engineering were signed on my sixteenth birthday. As part of the apprenticeship, I attended day release at Southwark College in South London, studying mathematics, workshop practice, chemistry and other subjects. My first year at college was spent in a special-needs class to bring my education up to the required entry level.

I have discovered that you can achieve almost anything if you truly put your mind to it, remain focused and work hard. The principal requirements for success are clarity of thought, focus, determination, hard work and a dash of good luck. Education is valuable, but intelligence, integrity and determination matter just as much – if not more!

After a couple of ups and downs as a one-man business, I formed Britannia Wardrobes Limited at the age of 51, purchased a factory and entered entirely new territory. The company manufactured high-quality bespoke bedroom furniture and developed a wide range of distinctive sliding mirrored wardrobe doors and associated tracks. Although precise statistics are unavailable, I believe Britannia became the leading supplier of sliding wardrobe doors in the UK.

I sold the business in March 2008 when my wife became seriously ill and needed my full-time support. She died in February the following year. I was 72 years old.

In January 2010 I started a therapeutic counselling course and qualified as a counsellor five years later. I then engaged in a number of ‘alternative’ counselling models, including CBT, Psychodynamic, The Inner Child, Couples and more. I wanted to gain as much training as possible, in the knowledge that, if I added that to my life experiences, I would be of greater value and benefit to my clients.

I joined Cruse Bereavement Support in 2014, where I am still very active, facilitating bereavement support groups. I am also a supervisor for them. In addition, I support private clients.

I love my counselling work. The thrill of seeing someone who has made multiple attempts to end their life transform and go on to live a happy and meaningful life cannot be measured! Helping those suffering from anxiety to learn to ‘normalise’ and manage it so it doesn’t adversely affect their daily living; witnessing those on the brink of divorce rediscover and rekindle the love that brought them together; observing the liberation of those affected by child abuse, which mentally and emotionally imprisoned them, and helping them discover their authentic selves and realise the joy of “Living the life you love, and loving the life you live”.

I feel so privileged. I’m now 89 and plan to live forever. Plan B is to live until I die.